


Hematoma

by GlitterGluwu



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Anxiety, Bruises, Eye Trauma, F/M, Jealousy, Minor Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hubert von Vestra, Minor Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hubert von Vestra/Ferdinand von Aegir, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior, Open Relationships, Possessive Behavior, Premature Ejaculation, Step-Sibling Incest, Vaginal Sex, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:27:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23438422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlitterGluwu/pseuds/GlitterGluwu
Summary: The mark he left was not as dark, and it would not last as long. He would have to find a way to change that. But he did know one thing, his sole source of comfort as Edelgard cuddled closer.Edelgard had always loved heat.---After an unexpected hospital stay throws his life off-balance, Dimitri struggles to catch up.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Edelgard von Hresvelg
Comments: 23
Kudos: 92





	Hematoma

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MercurialCrown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercurialCrown/gifts).



> Why is it always the sibcon stuff that I expect to be short and sweet and smutty that ends up being a MILLION words long and woefully lacking in proper smut? At any rate, I've decided this is too long to be a birthday present, so now it's a prank. Happy April Fools', Merc! Enjoy eighteen thousand words, sucker!!!
> 
> [(okay but for realsies Merc is a sweetheart go bother them)](https://twitter.com/mercurialcrown)

El loved heat. She loved warmth and sun. Indeed, the entire reason why they struck up an unlikely friendship toward the end of their fifth grade school year was because El endured the heat better than his usual friend group. She claimed it was because she’d grown up further South one day while they kicked a ball back and forth between themselves and themselves alone, because nobody else had been in the mood for soccer in that heat. Adults were talking about broken records and weather patterns, but all Dimitri remembered about it was his best friends hiding in the cool shade while he still felt active, and El being his reprieve.

Felix was jealous. Ingrid teased him for having a crush, and Dimitri could only be grateful that she’d said it out of Sylvain’s earshot; he’d seen how it went when Felix had reluctantly admitted to a crush on Annette, and he was not terribly thrilled at the prospect of having his alleged affections singsonged out in front of their entire class. As it was, Sylvain did tease him for having what he called a girlfriend, and it was all Dimitri could do to hide his blush before Sylvain saw it.

She came over many times that summer, escorted by her mother. She told him about her parents being divorced, and they both watched through the window while Patricia sat at the table and chatted with his father. He hadn’t expected her to stay for so long - it felt… something strange, having them talk like that.

El had a stepbrother, too, on her father’s side. He went to the same middle school as them, but the older grades had a different recess and lunch period so Dimitri hadn’t had much opportunity to meet him. El talked about him often; he sounded like fun.

The longer she stayed, and the more often they played, the more her presence thrilled him. When the heat outside got to be too much even for them, they played inside or sat on the stairs, making faces at the weird adult conversations their parents had together. He grew to appreciate Patricia’s presence more and more, because sometimes it meant El stayed later into the night and all four of them got to watch movies together before she went home.

School started again, but El kept coming over - and oddly enough, sometimes Patricia came even without her. Dimitri always felt faintly disappointed when she arrived without El at her side, but then she started cooking for him and he found he didn’t mind all that much anymore.

In mid September, El paid them another visit. They caroused in his backyard as they so often had, and then they collapsed on the grass and laid there together, content in each other’s company. He turned, pressing his right eye into the grass and surveying her with his left, and all at once, he realized.

He reached over and laid his hand over hers where it lay on the ground, and she looked to him. “Dima?” she asked.

“I think I love you,” he confessed, and her eyes went wide, frozen somewhere over his eyeline. He shifted as if to look, and she stopped him.

“Don’t move,” she whispered, and then she removed her hand from under his and reached. His heart pounded - part of him wondered if she was working herself up to kiss him - but her hand came away, holding a bright red dragonfly on her finger.

They’d seen plenty throughout the summer. He wasn’t at all sure why this one was in any way extraordinary.

“It’s my favorite color,” she said, as if that were any explanation, and she didn’t come over again after that.

* * *

Dimitri, like any child from a broken home, had had mixed feelings when his father had announced his intentions to remarry. Ultimately, his internal sense that Lambert deserved to find happiness with Patricia won out over his desire to believe that the only _right_ people for his parents would only ever be each other. His mother had died long before he could remember, after all, and his close relationship with Patricia helped, too; Edelgard, who had less of a relationship with Lambert, seemed a fair bit more reserved about the affair, but her father had already remarried himself and she didn’t seem too pressed either.

They did share a few awkward conversations over how their relationship as friends had met its conclusion all that time ago, stumbling over their words and laughing with nerves. Still, the shared past at least made things a little less clumsy as their families merged together, if not less awkward.

Their playdates had come to a rather abrupt halt when he’d confessed his crush on her five years earlier, after all. Dimitri could hardly blame her for feeling a little stilted around her newly-minted brother; he’d be remiss if he were to claim he didn’t feel much the same.

Edelgard only stayed with them during holidays from school; during the year, she stayed with her father and her stepmother and stepbrother, the von Vestras. In spite of Dimitri’s memories with her, she did seem quite a bit closer with Hubert than with him, and that suited him just fine.

Still. He missed their former closeness, now more than ever; he heard her sometimes, having invited Hubert or Ferdinand or some other members of her homeroom class over during summer or winter holidays, laughing raucously long into the night while he hosted his own somewhat more tame friends in the adjacent room, and often wished more than anything that she’d poke her head in and invite them over.

He supposed he should just give thanks for the second chance he’d gotten and move on.

* * *

He’d nearly forgotten that Edelgard had already arrived for summer break when he stumbled from his room, dragging his feet and clutching his head. He’d been asleep for an awfully long time - since before it had gotten dark, certainly - only to be awoken by the same pounding migraine that had so badly disrupted his semester.

He took care on his way down to the kitchen, relying on spatial memory over vision in the dark and faintly surprised to see a light on downstairs. He squinted as he approached, groaning in pain and confusion, and nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a familiar voice.

“Dimitri?” said Edelgard, and after collecting himself he grunted in greeting. She cocked her head, a blinding specter under the fluorescent lights after having stumbled there in the dark, and asked, “Goodness, are you alright?”

He hesitated on the threshold, trying to let his eyes adjust to the bright light while his head buzzed with sleep-heavy confusion. A persistent black spot in his vision obscured Edelgard until she seemed to remember something, straightened and said, “Oh, allow me, I’m sorry,” and trotted across to the light switches to dim things down for him. 

“Papa told me more about the headaches - I hadn’t heard anything since you were hospitalized,” she explained, standing close and peering up at him in concern. “Is there anything I can do for you? Did you come for your tea?”

The words were spoken delicately, but as always, they echoed endlessly in Dimitri’s pained head and took a moment to register. He nodded, and she squeezed his arm and stepped away, offering - and then proceeding - to take care of it herself, inviting him with a gesture to take a seat at the kitchen island.

He gladly accepted, finally starting to feel a little more articulate. “I’m glad to see you, El,” he murmured, drawing lines in the grout on the tiled countertop. “It’s quiet without you around.”

“With how you’ve been faring, I would have guessed you’d be grateful for that,” Edelgard replied, and he chuckled. Laughter felt nice; even Sylvain had been more reserved than ever during his hospital stay, and it’d made him feel like he was on his deathbed rather than experiencing some brief, albeit frustratingly inexplicable, medical issue.

“What brings you…” Dimitri began, his eyes trailing upward, only to blink slowly in disbelief. His eyes hadn’t been nearly as reliable as they’d once been lately, but -

His stool screeched as he pushed himself backward, eyes wide and averted. Edelgard was - she was -

“Dimitri?” she asked, cocking her head, and he fought to keep his eyes above her shoulders. The panties were bad enough, but the shirt - tank top - was white and nearly translucent even in the low light, and he was ever aware of the twin dark spots at the tips of her small, pointed breasts.

“I’m - alright. I just thought I would head back to bed, perhaps…”

“Without your tea? Will you be able to sleep?” Edelgard questioned. She stepped toward the teapot. “It’s nearly boiling, but if that’s what you’d prefer…”

Don’t look down. Don’t look down. For the goddess’s sake as well as his own, don’t look down.

“I’ll have the tea,” he conceded, and she smiled, looking faintly confused. When she turned to reach up into the cabinet for a mug, his eyes flickered down and he couldn’t suppress an inhale at the dainty, pale perfection of her rear, set off by the dark maroon lace of her underwear.

He clenched his thighs, he clenched his teeth, and he forced himself to look away. It was pure sin to be eyeing his sister like this, and the fact that she was his stepsister was no excuse. Perhaps his brain was just too muddled by the events of the past two weeks, and by pain, to school himself properly.

“I’ve probably heard as much as I need from Papa, but I suppose it might offer some additional comfort to hear it from you,” Edelgard mused, briefly interrupted by the squealing of the teapot and her own attending to that matter, “You really don’t know what it could be? Or when it will stop?”

Dimitri frowned. Truth be told, he was growing weary of this being the only thing anybody bothered talking to him about. “The current hypothesis is that something is wrong with my eyes, because when I got an MRI the only item of interest was there. I’ll be seeing an optometrist the day after tomorrow.”

Edelgard nodded slowly as she stepped closer, carefully looping the tea tag around the handle of his mug and handing it off to him. Dimitri kept his gaze trained downward, his eyes catching on every little minute freckle on Edelgard’s hand as it passed through his range of vision. His thigh twitched; he needed to get back to bed as soon as his mind offered him a valid excuse.

“I’m sorry to press,” Edelgard said faintly, coming around to his side and bracing her elbows on the counter next to him instead of sitting down, and he found himself all too conscious of her warmth there beside him. “I know this kind of talk has probably dominated your life for all too long now.”

She had misinterpreted his downcast gaze, but for once, he didn’t feel compelled to correct her. He nodded.

“Papa said you might need help preparing for your makeup exams? I’d be happy to oblige.”

Dimitri startled, briefly looking into those pretty lilac-colored eyes of hers, and nodded eagerly. “Yes! That would be delightful, thank you. Mind you, Sylvain offered, but only after he heard you’d be staying over.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Edelgard hummed in amusement, turning her shoulders toward him in such a way that he very quickly drove his gaze away. He considered crossing his legs, but he worried that he’d be acting too obvious. “Well, I’ll be happy to help. Which subjects do you need to take?”

“Ah, APs had already passed when I got sick, so… Fodlish, Chemistry, and Calculus.”

“And how long do you have until make-ups?”

“About a month… They weren’t sure when I’d be well enough to get back to studying, so they gave me ample time.”

“Excellent. Well, if you’re feeling alright in the morning, why don’t we start catching up tomorrow?” Edelgard suggested. She crossed her arms and Dimitri felt his face grow warm. He brought his mug to his lips for a distraction, figuring his tea must have cooled enough to be drinkable by now. “And do be sure to tell me if you’re _not_ feeling well. I certainly don’t need Papa to come after me for straining you more than necessary.”

“Father would never have the heart,” Dimitri murmured, inhaling the calming, astringent aroma of medicinal tea. It was the truth; Lambert seemed to have developed a soft spot for his stepdaughter. He remembered his earlier question. “Why are you down here?”

“Oh.” Edelgard paused. “I always have a bit of trouble adjusting, moving from my house to yours. They just… make different noises at night.”

Dimitri nodded in understanding. The longer she stood next to him, the harder it was to keep his eyes off of the smooth, soft plane of her shoulder, the graceful drape of her hair. It was harder not to think about the rounder parts of her, the parts that naturally stood out to him versus the parts that dipped inward. “Well - if you,” he stammered, fighting to find a topic that would draw him away from these thoughts, “If you need a distraction, my sleep schedule has been fairly inconsistent anyway. You can always give a knock.”

“That’s sweet of you, Dimitri,” Edelgard said, and suddenly she was closer, so close it pressed the air out of his lungs, and her lips brushed his cheek and her - _softness -_ was pressed against his upper arm because she had to stand on her tiptoes to do it and he was the closest stabilizing agent. Her slender arms wrapped around his neck and he wondered if it would’ve been better or worse if she’d just hugged him head-on instead of sideways. At least this spared him the humiliation of her feeling his arousal firsthand.

Two weeks. He’d been in the hospital for two weeks with hardly a spare moment between nurses’ checks to attend to his… needs. That was the reason, surely, and not because he was some horrible pervert.

“I missed you,” she breathed, right there in his ear, and he shuddered around a gasp that he could only hope she wouldn’t hear.

He hardly took notice when she dismissed herself on her way back to her bedroom. He sat stock still, a million thoughts swimming around his brain - of her, of his late work, of his health, and it laid thickly over him like a blanket, threatening to crush him under its weight.

A muscle jumped in his jaw as he finished his tea and stood, taking care to turn the light off and stand in the blues and blacks of the darkness to adjust before making his way upstairs. Even if tending to his below-the-belt needs wouldn’t quell his anxiety, the least it could do was help him sleep.

* * *

They didn’t get to study the following day, because Patricia decided that it was high time they got to work on catching up with the chores they’d fallen behind on when Dimitri had been hospitalized. Dimitri was mercifully granted the task of taking care of laundry, with the stipulation that he was to stop and ask for help the moment his migraine became too much to bear; he inwardly decided that he would be doing no such thing. After all, he could always just retreat back into the darkness of his room between loads, and he was already being given the lightest burden.

The first load was towels from around the house, and he took the opportunity while they washed and he was still upright to sort the rest. Edelgard hadn’t been around long, so it was mostly his own and his parents’, but…

He scrounged up a familiar pair of lacy maroon panties, and he did a double take when he did. He held them bunched up in his hand for a second, then heard Patricia passing in the hall outside, calling to ask where his father had stashed the vacuum, and jerkily tossed them in with the rest of the darks.

His heart was pounding all too fast, pressing on the back of his eyes like the rumbling of an oncoming storm. He explained it away to himself as a natural reaction - the only other woman he’d ever seen in that state of undress in person was Patricia, after all. He’d been taken by surprise then, too, but by now he knew it was just a matter of growing accustomed to it. That would be no trouble at all.

The vacuum was found, and he sequestered himself back in his room with his head under his pillow and his hand fisting his cock.

* * *

The eyepatch helped, but not by much.

Dimitri rode in the back of the car while Lambert drove, reclining across the seat in an attempt to protect himself from the bright sunlight outside. It _was_ afternoon, right? One might have thought it was the height of daylight with how blinding it was; the sooner he got back to the muted blacks and blues and purples of his own room, the better.

“Do you think it’s from that ding on the head you got back during football season?” Lambert mused, in a carefully controlled voice that Dimitri had to strain to hear above the sound of the car moving. “She said trauma, but I can’t think of anything more recent… And it was on your right eye, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Dimitri confirmed, conscientiously turning his head so that his right side wouldn’t jostle against the seat.

“I’m glad it’s not… well,” Lambert hummed. He paused, then continued, “When they said _tumor_ in the hospital, I was pretty frightened. I suppose infection isn’t the most reassuring option either. And all those big words - what on earth are we supposed to think when we hear _evisceration?”_ He finished on a half-hearted laugh.

Dimitri didn’t answer. He understood his father had only the best of intentions, but this was _his_ health they were discussing, after all.

He’d wondered before what it would be like to lose a limb. He hadn’t quite put the same amount of thought into losing an _eye;_ he wasn’t altogether certain whether it seemed to cut deeper because of the reality of the scenario or simply because he would be coping with losing a part of his own skull.

Lambert seemed to understand that Dimitri wasn’t in the mood for conversation. Following a final, concerned glance at him via the rearview mirror, he turned his attention back to the road and stayed silent the rest of the way home.

Patricia was careful not to press the matter, either. She made note of his new accessory with a quick look between Dimitri and his father, then offered him tea and said, “Hubert’s in El’s room, if you wanted to say hi. I’ve let him know to keep it down.”

No, Dimitri didn’t want to say hi. All it would invite at this point were questions, and goddess knew he wasn’t in the mood for more of those. He respectfully bid his parents adieu and retreated back to his room, all too happy to sink blissfully into his familiar, freshly-washed sheets.

Ah, but nature called. He tossed uncertainly for a few minutes, debating whether he had it in him to ignore it until his nap was over, then sighed; no, he had to find the strength to prematurely pry himself out of bed and relieve himself. At least he didn’t have to go far - he shared an ensuite with Edelgard, so he only needed to move about ten feet and back.

He scratched irritatedly at his hair as he went. He’d already been growing shaggy when he’d been hospitalized, and they’d had to cancel a hair appointment in the meantime, but the general feeling of repulsion and annoyance wasn’t helped by the fact that he hadn’t showered since returning home. Perhaps he should amend that before his nap.

Faint voices sounded from the adjacent room - he paid them little mind at first, knowing straining to hear Hubert and Edelgard’s soft voices wouldn’t do his head any favors, but as he stood before the toilet and stared idly at the familiar, monotone floral painting they’d hung behind it, he let his mind - and his attention - wander.

He could hear Edelgard’s voice, but couldn’t quite make out the shape of her words over the sound of his stream. He let it peter out sooner than he might have otherwise and caught the end of her statement: “... without you at home.”

“I won’t be far. And you’ll be perfectly welcome to visit anytime, provided my company holds more power than your fear of new places.”

Dimitri shook himself dry while Edelgard chuckled and tucked his dick away when she replied. “The thought of you in an apartment of your own is amusing, somehow. I can’t help but picture this ominous den of sin.”

“I would prefer that you thought of it as our own personal love nest, dear heart.”

“Stop,” she laughed again. “It’s the same thing, in our case.”

“Are you not delighted? Imagine having relations at whatever volume we please.”

Dimitri froze with his hand halfway across the sink, hovering on its way to the faucet handle. His mind sluggishly tumbled over itself, dissecting what he’d just heard. Hubert hadn’t meant - right? He couldn’t have.

“I couldn’t begin to imagine you being loud during sex, Hubert. My mind conjures some wheezy old man when I try.”

“You wound me.”

He should not have been listening. His hand twitched as he hesitated on a precipice - whether to turn the faucet on and risk exposing his having listened in or whether to retreat back to his own room with dirtied hands - and realized that that was hardly fit to be the first concern on his mind in that moment.

Were they saying that they’d had sex? With each other? Despite being stepsiblings? His brain stumbled over the revelation as they carried on with their conversation, diverting to other details of Hubert’s newfound independence, his university schedule, and Edelgard’s plans for her senior year. Dimitri reluctantly pulled his hand back from the faucet, knotted his fingers in his pants, and stepped, slow and silent, back to his own room, closing the door as delicately as he was able. He turned it over and over, this knowledge that Hubert was _involved_ with his sister, _their_ sister, in a sexual way.

No, he… he could have misinterpreted. He must have. He had his doubts about Hubert, but Edelgard wouldn’t… No, she wouldn’t, absolutely not.

Hubert and his questionable morals hovered on the edge of his thoughts, though, as Dimitri crawled back into bed, standing over him like the black patch obscuring half of his vision, a stain laid over top of Edelgard’s pretty, glistening, pure white reputation. He’d graduated the year before, but Dimitri could remember him being one of the more intimidating seniors of that year despite not being involved in sports. It didn’t matter that they’d technically become relatives in Dimitri’s sophomore year - Hubert had always had a disruptive presence, and Dimitri wondered, suddenly, if his own mistrust of him was justified.

Scenes played out in his mind, all at once - theatrical ones where Hubert seduced his sweet, naive little sister, where he hovered over her like a shadow, smothering her like bruises on pale skin. He was so large, so imposing, next to her - even as physically weak as he was, he could easily subdue her, hold her wrists over her head until she submitted, cowed by his overwhelming persistence.

It was repulsive - it was maddening. Dimitri tightly grasped the material of his t-shirt right over his heart and forced himself to breathe. He was aroused, and his tumultuous mind offered him little comfort, only viciously chiding him for his perversion.

He would have to place his faith in Edelgard. He would also have to find something to distract his troubled thoughts, so that he could take the nap he needed so dearly. After another moment of anxious, knotted circling, he sighed, turned over, and reached over the side of his bed for his backpack. He supposed it was never too early to refresh himself on the semester’s readings and start thinking about his Fodlish essay.

* * *

They received a call from the optometrist two days later; a decision had been reached. The infection had probably existed for a number of months, and with that knowledge, the optometrist didn’t feel comfortable wading through the alternatives they might usually have before sending Dimitri to a surgeon. He would be seeing one within the next few days, and hopefully enucleation surgery could be performed the following week.

His father, as much as he’d tried to lighten the mood earlier, had had little to say; he’d handed the phone to Dimitri when asked and taken it back from him when offered, and he’d spared Dimitri a sympathetic glance as he skulked back to his room. Patricia had come knocking at one point thereafter, but Dimitri just pretended to be asleep.

If he was being honest, he was equal parts afraid and relieved. No, he didn’t _like_ that this was the conclusion that had been reached, but the headaches had all but stopped the course of his life in its tracks. If the choice was between hiding in the dark for goddess knew how long and having an eye removed, well, the decision was easy enough.

He still didn’t sleep well that night. He’d already struggled with insomnia before all of this, but either the blow to his circadian rhythm that the lack of schedule had given him or the pure anxiety of his situation made it particularly hard to relax.

He looked over his head to the window and reached up to part the curtains and consider the deep, dark blue of the sky. He hadn’t had much opportunity to go outside lately, and their neighborhood was a pretty safe one. Perhaps a late-night walk was just what he needed.

As he pulled on some more presentable clothes, however, he was very nearly startled out of his skin by a knock on the door. He called “Just a moment!” perhaps a little louder than necessary and flinched inwardly; it couldn’t be his father - he’d have heard his footsteps - so who…

“Take your time,” came the reply, and Dimitri paused in his tracks. What was Edelgard doing here so late?

He finished dressing - pulled a sweatshirt over his head, knowing how cold nights got even in summer - and approached the door. Edelgard stood there with her arms wrapped around herself, wearing a similar outfit - if it could be called that - as she had during their previous late-night encounter. He jerked upon making note of this development, careful to avert his eyes when he asked, “Ah, El - what are you doing here?”

Edelgard cocked her head to the side and paused before responding. “I was struggling to sleep again… Although I would’ve dressed up if I’d known the occasion called for it.”

It was as if his brain had gone to sleep and left his body there to deal with the consequences. He tried to piece together her intent, to assemble a response that wouldn’t immediately expose his thoughts, before finally deciding to divert. “So why me, then?”

“You invited me?” she said, faltering. He met her gaze in time to see her brow furrow uncertainly. “The other night… Though I wouldn’t dream of disturbing you, if you didn’t mean it.”

At long last, his thoughts snapped to attention. “Oh! I meant it,” he rushed to assure her, only to be gently shushed as Edelgard glanced down the hall to their parents’ room. Dimitri followed her gaze, then continued, softer, “I do apologize, El, I just forgot.”

She seemed to relax at his reassurance, though there was still an air of discomfort surrounding her. She crossed her arms, inadvertently pushing her meager breasts together, and Dimitri struggled to maintain his attention as she asked, “Were you going somewhere?”

Ah. He felt his face grow warm, ashamed, once again, at his perversion, and said, “Just for a walk. I was feeling energetic, for once… You’re welcome to join me. Or - whatever you desire, too, that’s also quite alright.”

She was quiet for a moment, just looking up at him, a dainty, huddled clump of pale purple surrounded by blackness. Then she smiled. “A walk sounds nice, if you’ll have me. Just let me put some pants on.”

“Of course! Take your…” Dimitri began; Edelgard turned as he spoke, headed past the bathroom door to her own room. The darkness of the hallway smothered his view of her, but he still made out the pale shape of her derriere, swaying in the dark, peeking out from underneath what appeared to be patterned underwear. What the pattern was, he wasn’t sure - she disappeared through her doorway before he could make it out, and tempted as he was to follow, he understood that was the most suspect action he could take in that moment.

He endeavored to distract himself by setting to the task of finding his keys and phone, but before he’d even gotten that far, Edelgard’s pale form materialized in his doorway once again, offering a small, terse smile - and clad only in the same tank with the addition of some sweatpants and slip-on shoes.

Dimitri raised his eyebrows and forced his voice into line. “That was quick.”

“I just needed the pants. What are you doing?”

“I needed… El, it’s _cold_ outside,” Dimitri admonished her, feeling heat creeping into his cheeks. “If I need a sweatshirt, you most certainly will.”

“It’s the middle of summer,” Edelgard tittered. “And we won’t be out for long, right? And if any creeps come by, I’m sure my big-little-brother will have no trouble scaring them off.”

He very nearly regretted his sweatshirt already; “hot under the collar” was barely sufficient to describe how he was feeling. “That - wasn’t my concern,” he stammered, and she covered her mouth around a chuckle. 

“Then come with me,” she said, shooting him an amused look as she turned down the hall toward the head of the stairs; he quickly located his keys and stuffed them in his pocket before loping after her, internally amazed at how much quieter she was able to move around his own home than he was. Granted, he wasn’t especially concerned with being caught; his parents trusted him well and they wouldn’t suspect him of sneaking out. Still, courtesy necessitated caution.

They made it downstairs and out the door without any trouble, and the cool air on Dimitri’s face was a welcome boon. The moonlight was bright, and it gave him pause to consider just how long it had been since he’d been outside to see it. Hadn’t it been close to the full moon then, too? The grass was fuller than the last time he’d given it a proper look, deeper in color even under the silver-blue light, and he was no expert on flowers, but the ones in bloom were completely different.

He’d lost weeks’ worth of time to his illness, and in that moment, the weight of that time truly struck him.

Edelgard’s small, soft hand hooked through his elbow, startling him into the present, and he looked to her. Her brown hair very nearly looked gray in the moonlight, her eyes like silver mirrors; the corners of her lips quirked upward and she asked, “Where to, then? Just around the cul-de-sac?”

He hesitated, then nodded. She stepped forward, and so did he, distracted from his preoccupation with Edelgard’s mode of dress by all the minor changes he’d been too pained to notice. Everyone’s deck furniture was out now, lawn decorations, children’s toys scattered on a few lawns - trappings of youth that he hadn’t been so fortunate to see put to use in the daylight.

Edelgard paused, bringing Dimitri to a halt with her. He peered curiously down at her, only to see her frown back. “Is something the matter?”

“Yes,” she said quietly, looking carefully up at him. “With you, I think. What’s wrong? Are you feeling alright?”

He opened his mouth, but words stubbornly refused to come. His eyes felt - warm, hot, and he worried suddenly that he was about to break into tears. He closed his eye - the one not covered by a patch - and shook his head, not intending to confirm her suspicions as much as to stall for time.

“Would you like to go back inside? Or sit down?”

“No, I - it’s alright,” he assured her, his voice thick in his throat, frustrated and - and pulsating with emotions he couldn’t put to words in any satisfying way. “It’s overwhelming.”

“Because…”

He paused, trying to find the right phrasing. “I’ve been - in the hospital, or in pain, for so long… It’s strange, seeing that all this _life_ has just been carrying on without me. It’s like I’ve time-traveled to a different era… Or like I died temporarily. It’s… I don’t know if it makes sense, but it’s frightening.”

Edelgard covered her mouth. Her eyebrows were tented in sympathy, her voice soft. “I’m so sorry, Dimitri. I understand, that sounds terrible.”

He struggled to answer. He blinked, heavy, heavy, and felt the sting in his eyes travel into his throat when a tear finally fell. Edelgard pressed against him and he leaned his head on hers, grateful for her presence there.

“When I was twelve,” Edelgard said, soft as a feather, “My uncle abducted me. I was reported missing for three days.”

Dimitri stiffened. He had never heard this story - even as her former playmate, even as her current stepbrother, this was brand new to his ears. They’d been classmates back then, hadn’t they?

“My classmates had no idea what happened. When I arrived back, everyone just thought I’d been sick… I understand it’s not at all comparable to what you’re going through -”

“El, that’s - your traumas far outweigh mine,” he rushed to say, but she shook her head against his chest. He could feel the dampness of her eyelashes against his neck.

“Let’s not quarrel over who had it worst,” she cut him off, and he was tempted to disagree, but then she tilted her head upward and his voice died in his throat. Her face was so close, he was suddenly conscious of everything he did, every little movement, worried that she would think he was breathing too heavy or flushed too hard. “I just mean - I understand your fear. You’ll catch up, I promise. I certainly did.”

He was at a loss for what to do. He nodded stiffly, and she offered him a teary smile; everything she did flooded him with warmth. “I feel better now,” he whispered, conscious of her closeness. “You don’t have to hug me.”

Her face immediately dropped into a sheepish expression. “I...” she faltered, hiding her expression in his chest - good _goddess_ she was cute - and continuing, “I think you were right. I’m a little cold.”

He laughed - half-nervous, half-amused - and asked, “Would you like my sweatshirt, then? It’ll be a little big, but I can endure a little cold better than you, I’m sure.”

She laughed too, smothering it into his chest, and nodded. She pulled away with her arms wrapped around herself, and his eyes caught on the pea-sized bumps under her thin shirt - her nipples. He clenched his jaw in surprise and immediately set to the task of pulling his sweater over his head.

He offered it to her with his eyes still planted firmly on the sidewalk, hearing her brief huff of breath. Had he offended her? He turned curiously back to her as she pulled it on, only to see her smiling as her head popped out of the neck. She was positively swimming in the thing - it went down to her _thighs -_ and Dimitri desperately battled with the various pressing thoughts that bubbled up at the sight.

“Thank you,” she said, tilting her head with her motion as she pulled her hair out of the neckline and going on to hold her hand out to him. “Shall we?”

Was he meant to take it? It’d be perfectly ordinary if he did, wouldn’t it? He tenderly reached out, not missing how her eyebrows raised as he placed his hand in hers. She didn’t offer any objection, however, and eagerly swung their hands between them as they carried on with their walk and eventually returned home.

They mounted the steps together, and as glad as Dimitri was to be home, there was an entirely new class of anxiety fluttering around his mind when he turned for his room, one that he was equally sure would prevent him from sleeping. He had little room to contemplate all the new revelations he’d experienced in relation to his step-sister, however, because suddenly she was clearing her throat.

“I - that story I told you,” she said delicately, and he looked to her, seeing how she shifted in discomfort. “I don’t like being alone in strange houses at night.”

He hesitated, then nodded. If she was in the mood to share, he would be the last to stop her.

“I know I should be used to this place, but - every time I come back, the anxiety does too. So I - just for tonight, I promise - could I please stay in your room? I’ll be quiet.”

Her expression was unreadable in the renewed dark, but his heart went out to her. It was a difficult question to pose, he was sure, and it made him proud to have earned her trust in this way. 

Still - she was the source of his own newfound anxiety, and she would be staying in his room. There was no chance he would be sleeping for the remainder of the night.

“Of course you may, El,” he said softly, and he heard her release a tense little breath. “Just allow me some time to change into my pajamas, please?”

She dipped her head, whispered, “I’ll do the same,” and stepped away. It occurred to him that she was still wearing his sweatshirt, but he decided to allow it; if it could give her comfort in the future, then it was clearly more useful to her than it was to him.

He set to undressing, and before long she was back. He lifted his head to smile at her, then froze when he realized she was still in that same tank and underwear - the only difference was that she’d tied back her hair, baring her neck and a pair of dark marks on either side of it. She smiled and drew closer as he straightened, fully outfitted in his pajamas, and he cleared his throat, realizing that the marks, nearly as black as night, were in the shape of teeth.

They must have been recent, right? To be that dark. His mind drew to a standstill for a moment, turning their presence over and over, and something occurred to him; the only visitor Edelgard had had in the last few days was Hubert.

“Do you mind sharing your bed?” Edelgard asked him, smiling as innocuously as ever, and Dimitri barely contemplated his answer before nodding absently. She turned to the bed, bending over to crawl in, and he saw the pattern he’d struggled to make out earlier; she was wearing underwear with teddy bears on them.

She made herself comfortable, then turned back toward him. “Coming?” she asked, and he understood one thing very clearly.

He was so jealous, he could’ve broken Hubert clean in half.

* * *

For all that having an eye removed seemed like a severe conclusion to jump to, the recovery was astonishingly easy - his surgeon likened it to having wisdom teeth removed, but barring the blank spots in his memory while he waited for the anaesthesia to wear off he found it even easier. The pain was more akin to a muscular ache he might’ve had after a hard day of weight training, and after so long of suffering so much, he was more than content to bear with the discomfort for a few weeks.

Even the pressure bandage he had to contend with was less intrusive than he’d supposed it would be. He had to take care not to get it wet while washing his hair, but on the whole it was less trouble than even his eyepatch had been. He’d been assured that it would be removed at the soonest possible convenience, replaced instead by a clear spacer while his socket continued to heal and his prosthetic was being made.

Within a day or two he was more than eager to push past any lingering lethargy and begin studying for his exams in earnest; he’d been so fortunate as to make it through the majority of classes by the end of the semester, but he did need to refresh after nearly a month out of commission. 

This presented its own problem, however, and her name was Edelgard.

Dimitri scoured his memories, wondering whether she’d always been this lackadaisical in her manner of dress - going braless where he and Lambert could see or _only_ wearing bras or underwear, trotting outside to check the mail or water the garden in pajamas, leaning in toward him in low-cut tops… Perhaps she had, and he simply hadn’t noticed. Perhaps his ever-intensifying obsession was the driving force, and not any inherent eroticism Edelgard possessed.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his remaining eye; she’d sat herself next to him at their dining room table that day, an action that had at once granted him relief - no risk of seeing down her shirt if she didn’t have to lean forward to address his questions - and frustration, because he could feel her warmth lingering there next to him and he was powerless to address it. She was hunched over her phone, scrolling through goddess knew what and intermittently tittering at whatever she encountered there, and his greatest struggle was in preventing himself from leaning over to see if she was, perhaps, communicating with Hubert.

She shifted in her seat and glanced up at him. Despite himself, he met her gaze this of all times, and she simpered. “I’m sorry, am I distracting you?” she asked, and he quickly shook his head. She went on to insist, “I can put it away if you need.”

“No, it’s quite alright,” he assured her, paused, and blurted, “Are you talking to your boyfriend?”

She blinked, visibly taken aback. “Boyfriend…?” she half-laughed, then broke into a full one after another moment. “Whatever led you to that conclusion? I assure you, I’m completely single.”

Dimitri felt a pulse of heat behind his eyes - well, eye. “Really? Nobody at all?”

Edelgard frowned in the brow, but smiled in the mouth; her outward expression appeared to be as confused as her inward thoughts. “I mean - I mess around from time to time, but even the closest of those people understands that it’s a purely friends with benefits scenario. We’re both open.”

Dimitri nodded stiffly. He searched around for an appropriate response to this revelation, but came up short, so he split the difference. “I see. I’m sorry to intrude.”

Edelgard gave him an amused look as she turned back to her phone. “You, intruding? Never,” she said, and he wasn’t at all sure whether it was sarcasm.

With the issue resolved, Dimitri tried to turn his attention back to his practice set - but his thoughts had hardly settled. So Hubert wasn’t the only one? It only made jealousy burn brighter, fueled all the more at the thought that his other adversaries were mysteries to him. His thoughts shuffled frantically through the candidates, the various classmates he’d seen Edelgard talk with at school - from that insufferable Ferdinand to the perpetually yawning, nameless do-nothing to his own teammate, Caspar.

Who else? Who else had been so charitably offered a piece while he was left with nothing? Dorothea? Goddess knew she was shameless enough to propose it, but would Edelgard accept?

A muted _crack_ drew his ear and he jerked to attention, his grip on his mechanical pencil loosening all at once as he looked down and realized he’d cracked its plastic casing. His breath stuttered on its way into his lungs and passed falteringly out, and his entire body seemed as if it were coming out of shock.

Worst of all, Edelgard noticed. She brought his hand to her, pried his pencil out of his grip and scanned his palm for shards of plastic, chiding him all the while for letting his frustration build up that far without asking for help, saying she was more than happy to guide him through his Calculus woes.

His hands shook, even under Edelgard’s careful touch. She spared him a sympathetic glance, and her quiet assurance that he would do perfectly fine in the exam sounded as if it were coming to him down a long hall. The intricacies of the words were drowned out by an internalized, pressing worry.

As vexing as it was to consider her having taken on all those different partners, there still remained the possibility that it was a lie, that she was covering hers and Hubert’s tracks for fear that Dimitri would turn against her for it. That possibility, as pointless and paranoid as it was, was the most painful part of any of it.

Edelgard offered her own pencil and stroked his knuckles when he accepted it, her lilac-colored eyes wide with concern.

* * *

An indignant screech rang out through his backyard, startling Dimitri out of his thoughts. He looked up to see a positively _soaked_ Ingrid give Sylvain an irritated shove, only for him to snicker and place his thumb over the mouth of the hose to spray her again. Felix stood by, squinting through the bright sunlight with mild interest until Ingrid ducked behind him, placing him directly in Sylvain’s path - and inevitably leading him to retaliate tenfold.

While Felix and Sylvain feuded over the hose, Ingrid took the opportunity to break away, joining Dimitri in the grass a safe distance away with a distinct _squelch_ as she sat down. She rolled her eyes at him, and he had to laugh.

“I assume this was preceded by him asking whether you’d like to cool off?”

Ingrid huffed and made a show of wringing out her hair. “I wish. No, he said - and _don’t_ give me your shocked virgin look, I’m quoting _him -_ he said he could make any woman wet, and I was foolish enough to say ‘Not me’.”

Dimitri opened his mouth to reply, but was caught between a trio of different reactions. He couldn’t help the mirth in his voice as he asked, “My - my shocked virgin look?”

She winced. “Felix came up with that one.”

“What is my shocked virgin look?”

“Well, he -” she paused to snort - “He says whenever we say anything sexual, you gape like a fish… Or like Seiros herself is in the room, listening.”

He raised his eyebrows in disbelief, but continued laughing. “I’ve never done any such thing!”

 _“Sylvain_ apologizes for sex jokes when you’re around!”

Sylvain paused and looked around at the sound of his name, grinning all the while and completely soaked through. “Huh? You called?”

“Ingrid claims I have a shocked virgin look.”

“You do! Wait, hold on,” Sylvain replied, and at once he dropped the hose and stripped his shirt off - there was a brief, teasing sway to it, one that made Felix grimace, but then his head popped back out with a beam and a pointed look his way. “There it is!”

“Shameless,” Felix sneered. He sent a glance in Dimitri’s direction. “And you - one would think you’d never even _think_ about sex if people weren’t here to remind you it existed.”

“That’s not true at all!” Dimitri stammered, and his friends all laughed. “Come now, we haven’t had a chance to have fun together for ages, and now you’re all mocking me?”

Ingrid was still chuckling when she conceded, “You’re right - we’re sorry. Sylvain, _stop,”_ she added, and Dimitri turned his head to see Sylvain bent at the waist, wiggling his rear in their general direction. He gave his best attempt at a whistle just to make him snort and turned back to Ingrid.

“I can’t be the _only_ virgin,” he muttered, quiet enough that Felix and Sylvain wouldn’t hear. Ingrid rubbed his arm encouragingly.

“You’re not. I think the funny part is just that - well, you of all people _wouldn’t_ be if you were interested,” she mused. At his frown, she amended, “You’re very handsome! And girls like athletes.”

“It’s not that I’m not interested,” Dimitri replied, losing momentum even as he spoke the words. Of all people to discuss this with, Ingrid would not have been his first candidate; she was among the most austere of a particularly sterile friend group, and it just didn’t feel right. “I have… plenty of desires.”

“Do you?” she asked, her bright eyes alighting with interest. He paused for a moment, taking her in, as she pressed on. “Can I ask who for? You don’t have to go into detail, but the only crush I ever remember you having was Edelgard, back in middle school, and… well.”

She finished on the implication that he couldn’t possibly have feelings for her _now,_ which, by all accounts, should have been accurate. It made _sense_ that she made that assumption.

He looked down into the grass. It tickled his shin as he sat, lurid and alien after having lived for a month with a shadowy backdrop to everything he did. Ingrid was the same, bright, so bright that he could see it even out of the corner of his eye; it felt odd to feel so juxtaposed in relation to someone he’d grown up with.

It registered to him that she was dressed… not entirely similarly to how Edelgard so often did, but to a similar provocative degree considering how wet her clothes were, how close they clung to her body. He stared at her suntanned thigh for a moment, taking in the dark crease where it folded into her calf, the curve and the clarity of her skin. He even snuck a glance at her breasts, clearly defined in an old, faded t-shirt that held origins all the way back into middle school. He could remember how it had draped on her then, contrasting how it stretched now.

His head hurt; there was an odd pressure behind his eye. Why wasn’t Ingrid a sexual figure to him? Why did _she_ read as more “sister” than Edelgard?

“Dimitri?” she said slowly, and he startled. He straightened and blinked and she cocked her head with a concerned look. “You don’t _have_ to tell me.”

She’d been a cute girl who’d grown into a beautiful woman despite her rustic charm. Dimitri had no doubts about it, but his feelings for her were in no way sexual.

“I don’t think about anyone in particular,” he said quickly. “When I… S-satisfy my… myself.”

Ingrid wrinkled her nose. _“Ew,”_ she said, and he felt himself flush. “Dimitri, I was asking if you had a _crush.”_

He covered the lower half of his face and looked away; Sylvain and Felix were coming their way and he did _not_ want the focus to be on himself any longer. “Sylvain’s said worse!”

“But it’s so _weird_ hearing it from you.”

“Quiet, quiet,” Sylvain said in a hushed voice, and it was only then that Dimitri saw how he cupped one hand around the other, as if protecting a lit match from the wind. “Guys, look at this.”

He crouched down to his and Ingrid’s level, holding out his hand while Felix stood by; there was a red dragonfly perched on his index finger and he had a look of pure, awed delight on his face. Ingrid marveled over its choice of location and Felix laughed cruelly at the unintended barb, but Dimitri’s thoughts flitted to another summer, long ago.

He’d had a lot of practice capturing dragonflies in his backyard. He wondered if Edelgard would still react with that familiar excitement if he brought her one now.

* * *

He was still awake that night when Edelgard came timidly knocking at his door. His heart soared, then sank; he’d hoped, after being worn out by his friends’ company, that he would finally get a decent nights’ sleep, and now he was all but certain not to.

There was no way on the goddess’s earth that he would ever turn Edelgard away, though. He pried himself away from his laptop - what a joy it was, at last being able to rely on his eye well enough to focus on _something_ to distract from his tossing and turning - and greeted her at the door. She offered him a weak little smile, then tucked herself into his chest for a hug.

He’d come to enjoy these. Every time, he caught a soft touch of her soft hair against his chin, a faint whiff of the floral scent of her shampoo, and most importantly, a reminder of just how _small_ she was. Every time he held her, Dimitri felt a new wave of affection crest inside of him, dwarfing each of the previous by orders of magnitude, and that overwhelming rush of love shook him with its splendor every single time.

She was so gentle in all things, and so innocent. It made his blood boil to imagine how many had taken advantage of that frailty, and for what? Sex?

Repulsive.

“I didn’t realize you were still awake,” she said, quiet as a shadow, and he glided his hand down the silken waterfall of her hair. “You can keep doing whatever you please. I’ll sleep better with you in the room, regardless.”

“It’s alright, I was just about to turn in,” he fibbed, and she nuzzled into his chest, soft and sweet, exactly the way he loved so very dearly. He couldn’t bear it any longer; he bowed his head into her hair, scenting and even, in an abstract way, _tasting_ her with every breath. He wanted to press his lips down into the part of her hair, to trace a path down over her forehead, sparing a kiss even for her cute little nose, and…

He might have. He really might have, if she hadn’t pulled away at that very moment and given him a strange, even _sad_ look. “I appreciate you doing this,” she whispered. She smiled again, though her eyes looked glassy. “Dima.”

He raised his eyebrows at the nickname. “Goodness,” he said, and she released a short, nervous laugh. He felt - well, he felt a few things, but by and large they were positive ones. “It’s been ages since anyone called me that.”

“Really? Even your friends?”

So she had been aware of his company that day. He scratched his neck self-consciously and explained, “Well, I - I went through a bit of a rebellious phase in late middle school. I even told my father not to call me that anymore, I thought it was embarrassing.”

She tittered - just a faint little “huh” of laughter, but perhaps the cutest noise he’d heard that day - and said, “A rebellious phase? It’s hard to imagine, coming from you. Though I suppose we weren’t all that close by then.”

Edelgard stopped there. She looked down and away suddenly, and her eyes grew dewy again - Dimitri hesitated on the precipice of asking what the matter was, but then she stepped away to the bed, wordlessly climbing up onto it. He stood there for another moment before going to his desk to shut his laptop and turn off his desk lamp before joining her in the sheets.

“Do you think I’d get along with your friends?” Edelgard asked him suddenly, and he froze with his hand outstretched to his bedside lamp. He gave her a curious look, but she just peered at the ceiling.

“I don’t see why not,” he said, feeling curious. This was a positive development, wasn’t it? “Why do you ask?”

She pulled the covers up further, then at last met his eye. “Our lack of closeness after… what happened. I believe it’s my fault.” She paused to let the admission sink in. Her brow knit. “I should have given you an answer, instead of…”

He felt his heart pounding into his throat. They’d laughed about his dramatic declaration of love at their parents’ wedding, of course. He hadn’t realized she’d put any more thought into it than how awkward it was to be his sibling now. He wanted to touch her suddenly, to offer his grounding warmth, but - there was this lingering feeling, that of a more childish version of himself with a more childish version of his existing feelings, that was afraid. Perhaps she would reject him again.

“It’s behind us, El,” he said softly. He saw a crease in her brow and continued, “It was middle school. Neither of us really knew what to do.”

The covers came down and she turned her head toward him. Her fists were still knotted in the blanket and Dimitri couldn’t help but think, once again, how _cute_ she was. “Thank you for back then,” she whispered, and there was an earnest weight to it, a thickness in her words and a slickness in her eyes, that pulled him to her. He felt her shoulder convulse under his very first touch, and then she coughed wetly, and then she was crying.

“It’s alright -”

“When I was with my uncle,” Edelgard choked, half-smothered by his sleep shirt, “I kept thinking about you saving me.”

A snap of heat, a crackle of ash, and Dimitri suddenly felt tight all over. He felt her fingers knotting themselves into his shirt now, and his fingertips were nearly devoid of sensation as he rubbed circles into her back, soothing her even as his insides blazed brighter.

“I would’ve,” he rasped, and then he promised, “I will.”

A choked, creaky laugh escaped her. She sighed, deep and long, and she stilled, and after another moment Dimitri half-turned and reached behind him to at last turn off the light. They were in familiar territory now, cloaked by warmth and darkness, and she seemed to deflate even more. 

Just when he thought she’d at last fallen asleep, he felt her shift. She stretched her neck upward and he felt something soft - presumably her lips - brush his neck. “I suppose it’s belated at this point,” she murmured, “but I think I did like you. Why else would I have pictured my prince being you?” She paused, then added, “Perhaps I would’ve told you if my uncle hadn’t…”

Could she feel his heartbeat? Could she _hear_ it? She was so close, so entwined with him, more than she’d ever been, and suddenly that heat compelled him. He wanted to do it all again, to repeat the youthful mistakes of yesteryear and proclaim his love right there and then. He wanted to rescue her from -

From -

And kiss her all over, and feel just how soft her dainty thighs were, to probe between her folds and kiss and kiss and kiss until she writhed, desperate to stay quiet lest their parents hear. She would be so…

“Is red still your favorite color?” he blurted, and she didn’t answer for a moment. The heat didn’t dissipate as he’d hoped it would - he could feel it behind his eyes, curling in his stomach, and much worse, pulsing downward, pressing against her, seeking out his ultimate fantasy in a crudely physical way. She hummed against his throat and he gasped, but she seemed not to mind.

“I haven’t given it much thought, lately,” she admitted. After another moment, she added, “I guess it is.”

His mind was spinning in circles, and it was a miracle that he managed a coherent reply. “That’s… surprising.”

“How so?”

“I suppose I just don’t picture you with that color much anymore.”

“Really?” She sounded nearly amused, now. She wriggled backward a little, to his immediate relief. “What color do you identify me with, then?”

He thought about it, thankful for the distraction. He then settled on the truth. “Lavender, I think.”

She hummed again and he was left to his thoughts.

* * *

He really should have been grateful for the chance to study alone; his revised exam dates were coming up fast, and it had been kind of Edelgard to keep them in mind when making her birthday plans. Dimitri absently slid his fingertip back and forth over the spacebar, staring at the title of his Fodlish essay and the blank expanse beneath. He switched to his outline document after another moment, hoping that giving it another reread would get him in the proper mindset - but his eye caught on Edelgard’s annotations in the sidebar.

She had elected for a quiet celebration. Just herself, Hubert, and Ferdinand in her bedroom. 

Every time he tried to pry his thoughts away from the adjoining room, they inevitably made their way back. He dallied on this particular thought, his eye unfocused, until he realized that the note he was staring so intently at was inching its way down the page. He’d depressed the spacebar in his distraction, leaving a gaping hole in the middle of the word “rep resents”.

He pulled his hand back and placed it on his lap, squeezing his knee, grounding himself in any way that was available to him. His infatuation with his stepsister wasn’t important, certainly not as much as his schoolwork. He _had_ to finish his essay; his curiosity over what was taking place in Edelgard’s room was, in all ways, arbitrary.

The pressure behind his eye was back, and with a sigh, he closed his laptop and rested his forehead against it. The surface was cool and he thought to himself that these headaches were meant to be _gone._

Perhaps he’d just been looking at the screen for too long. Would a walk help? He turned his head and looked out the window, noting that it was still mid-afternoon. He didn’t want to expose himself to bright sunlight with his head feeling like this.

A nap, then? No, he wouldn’t be able to sleep. He sat up and rubbed his eye, feeling fatigued in every quarter. Less than a week left now, and then he could enjoy his summer break. Hopefully the reduction in school-related anxiety would let him catch up on rest.

His head inevitably turned to the door to the bathroom, closed out of courtesy. Was it too optimistic to tell himself that he just wanted to poke his head in to say hello? He needed a break, didn’t he?

He took a deep breath and at last pushed away from his desk, then stepped up to the door. He pressed his ear against it - nobody inside - and turned the handle, stepping over from hardwood to tile as quietly as he was able, already hearing familiar voices from Edelgard’s room. He listened carefully, stock still.

Edelgard was… giggling. Or gasping. Perhaps both. His door was adjacent to the toilet and across from the shower, and hers was placed diagonally across from his, next to the dual sinks and kitty-cornered from the hallway door. He hesitated on the threshold, then crossed, careful not to make a sound as her giggle-gasp pitched upward into a cry.

The back of Dimitri’s neck prickled with conflicting emotion; she sounded beautiful. Or adorable. But her chorus had backing vocals, one deep voice and one higher one. He picked out Ferdinand’s merry, enunciated words better than Hubert’s - “You see! I am in no way incompetent, _Hubert.”_

Hubert’s reply was lost to him, and he had to press close to the door to hear Edelgard’s. “I wouldn’t use as crude of terms to say it, but his point holds. You made me lose control _once.”_

Dimitri swallowed as Ferdinand sputtered. He carefully turned the lock on Edelgard’s door, then did the same for the hall one, and braced himself on the doorframe rather than the door itself. “Well, perhaps I would be more successful if I pretended to be Dimitri!” Ferdinand provided, and Dimitri dug his fingertips into the wood when he was shushed.

 _“Ferdinand,”_ Edelgard reprimanded under her breath.

“Perhaps you would be more successful if you didn’t choose to pause every other minute in order to propose asinine roleplay scenarios,” Hubert dryly chimed in. “I’ve never had a partner so reluctant to put their mouth to proper use.”

Ferdinand pouted audibly, but he seemed to take the advice to heart; the next moment offered him another gasp from Edelgard, one that made his cock twitch in excitement. She continued speaking, though in a higher pitch. “I wouldn’t - call it asinine,” she breathed, moaned, and continued, “Th-though - and I don’t say this to be cruel - but you would both be a rather poor imitation.”

Dimitri inhaled shakily. This was an unexpected turn, but nowhere close to an unwelcome one; he was so overcome with the revelation that he nearly lost the rest of the interaction. Ferdinand let out a half-smothered noise, nearly drowned out by Edelgard afterward. Hubert’s indignant reaction was harder to detect, but all the more satisfying to hear; “I apologize for falling short of your expectations, Edelgard.”

“That isn’t what I meant! I like you for who you are,” she assured him. Dimitri’s eye twitched. “Although - as always, I’d like it if you called me El.”

“Like Dimitri?”

“Ferdinand, _lick.”_

Edelgard’s chuckle turned into another moan. Dimitri inhaled through his nose and palmed himself through his pants, hesitating on a precipice while Edelgard’s noises crescendoed with time - he could linger and listen or return to his room. His curiosity had been satisfied - his worst case scenario was taking place, he was free to seethe as much as he pleased.

In spite of that, however, he found he wasn’t all that upset. He had proof, didn’t he? Edelgard wanted him. Even when she was with others, she wanted _him._

It was so easy to ignore Ferdinand’s noises, smothered as they were, and Hubert was so quiet - Dimitri palmed himself in earnest, shuddering, bracing his forehead against the doorframe, and reached a decision. He reached into his sweats and groped along his length, releasing a shaky breath and careful to keep his voice in check.

Shifting, fabric sliding against fabric, and Edelgard mumbled, “This is taking too long.”

“You said -”

“I want _someone_ inside,” she said, almost _whined._ Dimitri covered his mouth and panted into his hand. “Let’s just do anal, my front door is too tempermental.”

The statement made his arms break into goosebumps. What did that _mean?_ That she was small, even in her most private of parts? And she liked… His eye fluttered closed, taking respite in the dark as fantasies formed behind his eyelid. He was learning so much, so fast.

“After you, then!”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Ferdinand. Edelgard knows the benefits of starting _small.”_

“Ideally, I would take both of you if you could put an end to your catfight,” Edelgard interfered. Dimitri grit his teeth and groaned through them; she went on to say, “But yes, I think Ferdinand would be the safest start.”

Dimitri pulled his hand into a fist at the sound of more shuffling - of murmured negotiations, of Ferdinand’s _still_ audible voice when he asked Edelgard if she was ready - and bit his knuckles, pulling at his cock with a hardness he could hardly bear at the best of times. His own noises were stubborn in their bid for life - emerging through his nose more than through his mouth, occupied as it was.

He had to pull away from the doorframe at her muted gasp, tasting iron on his tongue when her men both whispered her praises. He couldn’t keep it down, he would - he was going to headbutt the wall if he stayed. Dimitri bent over the counter instead, huffing with need. Edelgard’s voice climbed in volume so that he could still hear her and the pull was so strong, he was so desperate -

He pushed back, no longer thinking of maintaining the illusion of quiet. He hardly cared to remove his hand from his pants, but he did if only to help himself into his room before he exploded. Stumbling to bed and faceplanting was as far as he got before he tugged at himself at a truly brutal pace, all but sobbing into his quilt with the force of that heat - that mixed, bloodred inferno of lust and fury combined.

He imagined he could still hear her cries, sweet things that would vibrate in her throat when she threw her head back, clinging to him with her feeble strength. She enunciated so precisely at all times, the thought of her screaming only the first syllable of his name because she didn’t have the breath for the rest made him punch his free hand into his mattress. And oh, if she lay there, with all that long, brown hair splayed out all over…

She’d slept in his bed the previous night. He paused, feeling his heart pounding into his empty eye socket, and lifted his head to relieve the pressure, panning up the length of his bed to consider his pillow. He shuffled forward, pulled it to him, and inhaled sweet relief in the form of her scent lingering there. 

Edelgard wanted him. That was the thought that finished him, sent him shuddering down into his bedding. Dimitri felt exhausted suddenly, and giddy too, just the right combination to finally draw him into nap mode. He smeared his dirtied hand on his blanket and sank willingly into the dark.

But it wasn’t meant to be; he was just on the border of sleep when a knock at his door jerked him awake. He paused, tempted to ignore it, but curiosity - and perhaps hope - persuaded him to prop himself on his elbow and call, “What is it?”

“Dimitri?” came the reply, and Dimitri instinctively set his teeth on edge. Ferdinand could be there for any number of reasons, but Dimitri’s mind could only conjure the worst possible proposals. Another moment, and Ferdinand added, “You seem to have forgotten to unlock the bathroom on your last visit!”

Ah. His face burned with embarrassment as he pried himself out of his bed. “Coming,” he called, folded over his bedding so that his ejaculate wouldn’t be visible, and paused when he saw bright red staining the knuckles of his right hand. That was right, he’d broken skin.

He held the injured hand close and stepped up to his bedroom door, pulled it open, and dipped his head to a rather ruffled-looking Ferdinand. To his immediate relief, Ferdinand seemed at once to be as humiliated to be having this encounter as he was; after a quick thank you and a baffled look at Dimitri’s bleeding hand, he passed through Dimitri’s door into the bathroom - but not before he caught a glimpse at an equally bloody bite at the base of Ferdinand’s neck.

An electric shock passed through him, like Hubert’s laughter. His fingers twitched like he wanted to grab Ferdinand and interrogate him before he disappeared, but he stopped himself. If he pressed Ferdinand about the nature of their activities, he would invite the same family of questions, and Dimitri understood quite enough anyway.

Ferdinand covered the bite by the time they were all called down to dinner; Edelgard likewise wore her hair down, despite Dimitri clearly remembering her having worn it up earlier that day.

Dessert was homemade ice cream that Dimitri recalled Patricia teaching himself and Lambert how to make the first year they started dating; Edelgard and Lambert had collaborated on this batch the night previous, and his father all but begged for assurance that his presence hadn’t spoiled the effort. Edelgard laughed warmly and leaned forward to offer him her praises, and Dimitri caught a familiar shape hiding under the sheet of her hair: a black bruise forming in the shape of Hubert’s jaw.

He met Hubert’s eye and maintained the contact. Hubert, for his part, tilted his head back as if in challenge, offering him the barest little smirk.

* * *

Patricia was seated at the kitchen island when Dimitri entered from the garage. She lifted her head as he approached and he beamed; she was dressed up, presumably for the date she and his father had mentioned earlier that day.

“You look lovely!” he said, at the same time as she asked, “How’d it go?”

She gestured, inviting him to answer first, and he nodded as he rounded the counter and arrived at her side to hand her the car keys. “I think it went well. I daresay I even over prepared… though I suppose the jury is still out on my essay.”

“El told me it’s flawless, Dimitri. And she’s always been good at essays.” She reached out and squeezed his arm encouragingly. “I’m glad it’s finally behind you.”

“I’m inclined to agree. And… I’m glad you and Father can finally have some time to relax. I apologize for all the turmoil.”

Patricia huffed warmly. “And what part of that was your fault, honey? We’d both happily endure it all and more for you.” She held out her arm and Dimitri gratefully hugged her, only faintly annoyed when she ruffled his hair as they parted. “We still haven’t re-arranged that hair appointment, have we? Could you give them a call tonight?”

He paused. “Couldn’t we wait a little longer?”

“Oh, you’re not annoyed by it anymore?”

“I am. But…” He trailed off. “It’s - I don’t want them to have to work around the bandage.”

“It’ll be off soon.”

“But then, I’ll have an eyepatch on…” He trailed off, internally willing her to stop the line of questioning. What was he supposed to say, that he liked when his sister played with it?

She pursed her lips, but her attention was drawn away at the heavy sound of his father’s footsteps entering the hall upstairs. “Well, it’s your choice. But let’s at least even it out before school starts again, alright?”

Dimitri smiled with relief, and his father burst in with an apology at having taken so long. He congratulated Dimitri and complimented Patricia, and the pair left without much more fanfare than that. Dimitri just leaned on the kitchen island for another moment, then sighed, hefted his backpack, and made his way upstairs.

The question of _what_ he would do now that he had the free time had not quite crossed his mind, but the romantic part of him did have a few ideas. He picked through them as he crossed to his room and opened the door -

And he startled when he saw Edelgard sprawled quite casually on his bed, her laptop propped open in front of her and going all but ignored when he walked in. She smiled at him, and he half-laughed to dispel his shock.

“El! Don’t you have your own room?”

“Can you blame me? All the nights I’ve slept with you, I don’t think it’d be any kind of mystery why I’d feel just as comfortable in your bed.” She cocked her head with a warm look. “And I was anxious to hear how it all went, of course.”

He wondered briefly whether her phrasing had been intentional while he crossed to his desk and deposited his backpack there. “It was just as you said, I was panicking over nothing. Honestly, with your coaching, I wouldn’t be surprised if my scores were better than ever!”

“You’re too modest.”

“I promise I’m not, El. You’re a good teacher,” he assured her, turning to lean against his desk chair. Her legs were bent at the knee, kicked up behind her like she was a girl half her age at a sleepover, and she had her cheek cupped in her hand. She blinked slowly, still smiling at him. Edelgard didn’t usually look at him like that.

“What are you planning to do with all your freedom?” she changed the subject, and it would normally have been a perfectly innocuous question to ask. If Patricia had posed it to him downstairs, he would not have batted an eye - but there was something in the look she was giving him and the way she drew out the syllables that gave him pause.

“I’m not sure yet,” he answered, standing stock still with his desk chair as an anchor. “I - I do think it would be nice to spend more time with you, though.”

It was the truth in its simplest form; he’d had plenty of fantasies about how they could spend that time, ranging from more late-night walks together to daytime dates to… more salacious things. He could feel tension mounting inside him, an impulse that took hold all too fast - he was going to confess right there, because there was nothing left to prevent him from doing so.

Her expression softened, and her smile, though it didn’t wane, seemed more genuine. “That’s very sweet of you, Dima. I think I’d like that.”

“Because I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

It was like fire was dancing on the surface of his skin. All the intricacies of language, and yet he felt as if he could only put his feelings in the terms a middle schooler might; “No, El, I _love_ love you.”

She covered her mouth, but her eyes crinkled at the edges - she was laughing at him. “Dimitri… I know,” she managed, pushing herself up into a sitting position. Her shoulders shook with suppressed laughter even as she put her hand down and looked him dead-on. “You’re not exactly subtle.”

He wasn’t at all sure how to interpret this development. The heat lingered, freezing his joints in place like it would spread if he moved. He wanted to ask her to clarify, but she seemed to see the rigidity of his stance and relented.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be cruel. It’s just - you’re very cute, Dimitri,” Edelgard said, and she came to the edge of the bed and let her feet hang over. He watched her fingertip trace lazy figures of eight on his quilt. Her legs were slender and white, and her shorts were… well, short. He thought he saw a certain familiar shadow on one thigh before she crossed the other over it, leaning forward with a smile. “I think,” she said quietly, bordering on that tone she’d used earlier, the alien one that didn’t _quite_ sound like his sister, “we should celebrate you finishing the semester.”

He frowned, paused, and said, “But El, you haven’t told me how _you_ feel.”

Her mouth hung a quarter of the way open for a moment. She blinked and said, “But I did. I told you I loved you.”

She wasn’t understanding. His heart pounded in his chest as he took a faltering step forward. She watched him as he approached, feeling his skeleton vibrate with every step, and then he stood looking down at her, at her narrow shoulders and wide, lilac-colored eyes.

“Could I please make love to you?” he asked in a hushed, reverent tone, and her smile was back along with the quiver in her shoulders - but his pride had left him and he no longer cared that she seemed so amused by his earnest proposal. He could feel her warmth pervading through the room, flooding his senses like a tantalizing aroma, and the second she nodded her head, he was pressing in, pressing down, and kissing her mouth, shaken by how fragile she felt in his hands.

Her next laugh passed from her mouth to his and he whimpered; her lips were so soft and when she kissed him back, it was with less force - but with a persuasive air to it, like she was telling him _follow me._ She flattened her palms on either side of his head, tilting it with a sort of soothing authority. His eyelid fluttered open and shut, wanting to drink her in as much as possible and unsure whether it would be easier to rely on sight or on touch.

Edelgard parted her thighs, letting him slot between them and humming her mirth when he gasped. He was still standing, sort of - more using his feet on the ground as leverage to press himself closer into her, his head pounding with the thrill of it, the shock that he was _there,_ bent over her and curled around her and -

And ever more aware of how clumsily his tongue slid along hers, how wet and how wanton his sounds were compared to hers. He was as hard as he could ever remember being already and when he ground down she was _hot,_ hot enough to make him sob with want.

“E-El,” he gasped, pathetic even to his own ears, and she shushed him, rubbing her thumbs back and forth on either side of his head and gently pressing him back.

“I’m going to tie your hair back, alright?” she told him, and he panted, so overcome with the events that were taking place that he couldn’t even answer. He just let her move him, pull him down into the crook of her neck while she gently brushed his hair back from his face. “It’s just tickling me, that’s all.”

Dimitri turned into her neck as she did it. Her scent was so thick there - he tasted it too when he ran his tongue over her pulse, ever more entranced. He kissed her throat and felt it vibrate when she hummed, feeling like an animal that knew nothing but longing to please his master. He opened his eye, glancing down the slope of it, and saw little shadows plastered over that expanse, faded with time, diluted down to a pale purple color, and it took a moment for the implication to hit.

Even now, that accursed man was having a laugh at his expense. The fury didn’t quite have a chance to build, however, because Edelgard pushed him up again, surveying her handiwork, and smiled. “You look quite nice like that,” she observed, tracing his cheek with soft fingertips. “You should see yourself.”

She was everything he had ever imagined, lying back like that. Her hair splayed out in trails like a river delta and she looked up at him with a gentle tint to her expression; her tank top, a different sort than the ones she wore to bed, lay askew, baring her collarbone and just a hint of the minute curve of one breast while the opposite side hiked up, its strap loose on her shoulder. “You are all I’m interested in seeing, El.”

One of her legs slid upward, pressing her knee into his side. “It seems as if you’re already in need of a little assistance,” she hummed, and he was embarrassed - but still, as shameless as he was, he took the excuse to press his arousal closer, hissing through his teeth at the heat that pulsed through him. “Would you care for a blowjob?”

Edelgard said it so simply, it nearly set him off. His hands might have shaken if they weren’t braced underneath him; it was all he could do to shake his head.

“No?”

“I wanted - t-to tend to your needs,” he stammered, ever aware of how breathy he sounded, how inexperienced. Edelgard didn’t seem to miss it, either; she chuckled again, her eyes closing around her amusement.

“It’s your first time, Dima. I want it to be good for you, I don’t want you to deprive yourself on my account.”

So she knew, then. His face grew even warmer and he shook his head again. “All I could ever ask is for the honor of touching you, El.”

She averted her gaze, covering her mouth, and for a moment he thought she was laughing at him again - but her cheeks grew red, and she said, “Dimitri, do you understand how - how _bizarre_ it is to hear someone say the things you say, and mean every word?”

“Is that a bad thing?”

She met his eye. Edelgard’s palette was always composed of softer colors, but the deep red staining her entire face was a surprisingly fitting addition; her pale eyes stood out even brighter, glinting sweetly at him. “Not at all,” she said, quiet, “but it’s a little overwhelming. You know,” she added, and she braced one foot against the edge of the mattress, using the leverage to grind up into him. He gasped, _loud,_ and she smiled under that deep expanse of red. “It makes me a little wet,” she finished in a hushed tone, as if she was embarrassed to admit it.

Dimitri couldn’t bear it. He acted suddenly, without thinking - one moment he was bent over her, the next he was scooping her up as if she weighed nothing, enraptured by her squeak of surprise. He all but threw himself on the bed, sitting up with her in his lap, nipping and biting at her throat as he had so dearly longed to. She gasped with each new contact, shivering in his hold, and the _power_ of it all flooded his senses, setting his whole body tingling. He ground into her clothed cunt as he kissed and kissed and sucked and bit, memorizing the dip between her shoulder and collarbone, holding her hips so tight they might have bruised.

No matter what he did, he didn’t feel close enough. Perhaps this was why people stripped when they had sex - every time he pushed closer, the slide of fabric over his front half only served to remind him of the millimeters of separation it enforced.

Did he dare move back? He couldn’t bear it long enough to disrobe them both, surely. His shirt alone would have to do; Edelgard grunted a little when he pulled away, chasing him with her hands until she saw his purpose. She helped him along, her hips stuttering over his and very nearly making him forfeit the effort and place his hands back on her, but then his polo was gone and he pressed forward again.

“Dima - wait -” she breathed between his bites, her arms splayed over his shoulders, tracing down and around. He could feel how the embroidery on the front of her shirt caught on his skin now, the faint scratching a temptation all its own as he ground on her. She carried on touching him, gasping, “Wow… All that time resting, and you’re still…”

He kissed her shoulders a few more times before her words sank in; she was praising him. He chuckled a little in his embarrassment. “Ah, no, I’m sure my coach won’t be at all pleased with me come autumn.”

“Why? You’re flawless,” she insisted. One of her hands retreated, sliding back over his shoulder and glancing down his pec on its way between them. 

“No,” he whispered, “You are.”

She tittered as she fell forward, leaning her head on his, all but pressing him into her shoulder again. He heard her breath catch without any effort on his part, then looked down to see that she had her hand tucked into her shorts. Her forearm flexed and he could feel faint movements against his crotch, and the very sight drove a sharp “oh” from his lips.

Dimitri placed his hands on her waist, just watching for a moment, and then his exhale stuttered on its way out of his lungs. Her knuckles bulged through the thin fabric of her shorts as they moved, and it took all of a few moments watching her touch herself for him to pitch back into her shoulder and ejaculate.

Edelgard didn’t even seem to know it had happened by the time he was sensate again. She made sweet, almost squeaky sounds right there in his ear as she touched herself. Her knuckles ground against his oversensitive cock through two layers of clothing and he was already growing hard again, driven out of his mind by how _cute_ she was, even in this. As if testing boundaries, Dimitri lifted a hand and slid it between them, laying it over the outline of hers. He could do little more than cup her hand in his palm like this, but it seemed to be enough; he heard a soft “huh” before she stiffened suddenly, held taut in his lap as her free arm curled around the back of his neck and squeezed. He felt like a pillar rooting a vine and it delighted him.

A moment later, Edelgard’s grip slackened. She kissed his cheek as she relaxed and he hummed his contentment.

“You’re so quiet when you orgasm,” he whispered, and he could feel the heat of her blush on his skin when she hugged him. 

“I apologize if it was premature,” she mumbled. “I can’t usually fit anything unless I’ve had at least one.”

“Fit,” he said dreamily. “You want me to…”

She chuckled. Then she kissed his ear. “Unless you had other plans.”

Her fingers fiddled with the shaggy trails at the nape of his neck, then gently scratched just the way he liked. He must have made a noise without knowing, because she laughed again, a sweet little bell chime that his heart sing. Everything, every part of her, made him feel so full.

“I might need a moment,” he admitted, shifting around and whining when his hardening cock grazed her cunt again. 

“Oh?”

Thank goodness she couldn’t see his face. He nuzzled into the curve of her shoulder and shamefully whispered, “I came.”

“Aww,” she cooed and giggled, as if she were crooning over a puppy. “You’re so endearing when you say sexual words. It doesn’t feel right at all.”

“That’s exactly what Ingrid said!”

“Well,” Edelgard said, pausing to kiss his jaw and working her way lower, making his skin prickle when she brushed it with her lips while she spoke, “You’re in luck… I always need quite a bit of help before I can get going.”

He shuddered with anticipation and she began mouthing at his neck; his voice escaped him with the next gentle bite, and all at once he understood just why Edelgard liked this so much. He swallowed and forced his voice to comply long enough to ask, “W-what - can I help with?”

She wetly trailed her tongue along the side of his neck, before ending it with a kiss. It was one of those little things she did that reminded him nonetheless that he was, in this space, nothing but an enthusiastic amateur; she was the true professional, and yet she was perfectly happy to help him learn. Her hand found his, pulled it from her hip to her breast, and held it there until he cupped it. She hummed in approval and left him to it while she continued to shower his neck in attention.

Her breast was so small, just like the rest of her, and it gave him an odd, simultaneously light and heavy feeling in his lungs. He squeezed, roughly gasping when he realized it hardly qualified as a handful, and took his other hand from her hip too. They were both so small and yet so soft, his chest felt tight.

Dimitri tugged uncertainly at her neckline, fighting to arrange his voice into something resembling speech, but Edelgard seemed to understand. “Feel free,” she whispered, sounding amused, and groped one of his own pecs as if teasing him. She circled a teasing finger around his nipple and he gasped - he hadn’t realized that could feel _good._

Thus emboldened, he looped one hand in under her shirt and cupped her breast again, feeling a new kind of ecstasy at just _how_ soft it was, and still hardly enough for just three fingers to hold. He flicked his index finger back and forth, feeling how it hardened under his touch and all but whimpering; he wanted to see, but it was hard with Edelgard hovering so close.

“El - may I -” he murmured, pressing gently at her shoulder, and she pulled back. He could see down her shirt, how his own hand covered one breast, and he pulled at the other side so he could look at the other. It was just a little mound of white that tapered into a soft, pink peak, but all at once his cock throbbed and he pulled her right back into him with a muffled, “Oh, _El.”_

She giggled warmly in his ear. “Ready?” she whispered.

He swallowed. Her weight lay heavy across his lap despite how dainty she was, teasing at him with every faintest of movements, making him pulse with want. He nodded, not quite trusting his voice until he remembered. “What about you?”

“Normally, it takes a little longer. But... I may have helped myself along earlier.”

He took a moment to process the information, then laughed incredulously. “Did you masturbate in my bed?!”

She gave him a tiny, incorrigible smile. “Like I said before, I’m just used to this now. I kept feeling your sleep erections against me, I had to take care of it somehow.”

Perhaps Dimitri should have been indignant at that, but it just made his cock twitch - which she must have felt, because her smile grew wider. “Y-you - while I was asleep?”

“I couldn’t help myself. It felt big,” she breathed, and her tone pitched upward by a hair. She glanced down between them and added, “I’ll be the first to admit, I’m curious to see whether my conjecture is correct.”

He was at a loss for words, so he just nodded eagerly. He picked her up again, her astonishment every bit as vocal as it had been the time previous, and laid her on her back, careful to cushion her head until it hit the pillow, then retreated to undo the button on his pants. His cock sprang eagerly out like a performer finally making his grand entrance and Edelgard sighed appreciatively, turning onto her side to look. 

She had already removed her shorts - she had apparently gone without panties and _that_ was a thought he elected not to linger on - and Dimitri snuck a glance while she was eyeballing him; she was shaven, petite, and everything about it screamed _delicate._ It was just a tiny triangle of skin between her legs, but it made his breath stall and wetness bead at the tip of his cock.

Edelgard reached for it, drawing him to her on his knees, obedient to his last. When she touched it, he felt his heart ratchet up into his throat, and if he had been standing at his full height, he might have collapsed; as it was he pitched forward, falling over her and placing her shoulder in his mouth for what he felt might have been the millionth time.

She hummed, a warm little sound, and all at once he stalled. He pulled back and looked at her, feeling a mixture of panic and disappointment mounting in his chest. “El, I don’t have protection,” he admitted, feeling shame color his cheeks.

“Settle,” she soothed him, and once again he felt like a dog with its owner, being reprimanded for his overexcitement. “I’m on the pill. Just put it in, don’t worry.”

The pill - he could ejaculate inside. The very thought made him pause, closing his eye and biting his lip, quivering with the effort. A couple loose strands of hair tickled his forehead, disturbed, presumably, by a caress from Edelgard while he forced himself down. He would be humiliated if he came before even inserting.

“Are you alright?” she asked gently, and another moment later he nodded. He cracked his eye open and dipped down to kiss her, and her legs parted for him - her thighs brushed his sides as she lifted them, then hugged his backside with them, beckoning to him with every part of her body. “Ready when you are,” she spoke, intimate and soft, and he was powerless to resist.

Though he did pause as he brought his hand downward, because he was curious - he reached down first, almost flinching back when he felt just how _different_ her vulva felt. It was a different kind of soft - nearly velvety like his foreskin - and when he dipped a little lower, he could feel just how wet she was. He struggled to breathe as he circled a finger there, just feeling and watching Edelgard’s eyelids flutter when she whimpered, nearly as overcome as he was.

“Please, Dima,” she sighed, “we’ll have time for that another day.”

Another day. It made him thrum with excitement as he obeyed her order. It was the grounding thought that prevented him from ejaculating the moment he slid into her tight, wet heat. In spite of all his inexperience, she still wanted to do this another day.

He pressed forward, and the sheer delight of it made his eye flutter closed. He forced it open again though, determined, because Edelgard’s mouth was hanging open, her pretty eyes half-lidded, and then she was keening, arching up into him. It was a good thing they’d saved this for a night when their parents were away, he thought, at last reaching a point where he couldn’t push anymore. He wasn’t even all the way in, but Edelgard had covered her mouth and was breathing high and fast.

“D-Dima,” she sobbed, and he felt faintly alarmed.

“Is something the matter?”

“You’re _big.”_

“Oh,” Dimitri breathed. Her chest was rising and falling before his very eyes, slick with sweat already, and he must have paused for too long because the next word out of her mouth was

_“Move.”_

And so he did - he rocked out and bucked in, and that friction forced him to seek an anchor - he found his hands on her hips, pressing in with bruising strength, reveling in the give of her flesh under his fingers. She felt exquisite and sounded _better,_ her voice pitching higher with every snap of his hips. He grit his teeth so hard he felt they might crack and thought, fleetingly, that there was no way he was going to last.

But maybe, just maybe, Edelgard wouldn’t either. He angled his hips _up_ and her thighs shuddered in rhythm with her scream, and he bent over her, tasting her tears on his tongue as if guided by pure instinct. Her breasts, small as they were, bounced on his next thrust, brushing against his stomach as he pressed on, feeling her, fragile as she was, coming apart in his hands.

She came first.

After that, he was entrenched in white fog, overwhelmed by the heat inside her, willfully pressing down into her and feeling her every limb curl around him as he forfeit. Her kisses were wet, her skin flushed deep red as she welcomed him back; she met his lips with muted hums and grunts, wiggling at the discomfort when he let his cock rest inside for too long.

It was a miracle that he organized his limbs enough to sort himself into something resembling a spoon, with her curled happily in his arms, her hair streaming every which way. She very nearly purred with the way she hummed contentedly, and it positively made him weak.

He was unsure when his eye finally opened, but all at once he was watching her fingers skirt down her side, where dark blue bruises were already forming at her hip. “You’re nearly as bad as Hubert,” she giggled, and Dimitri grew rigid.

He eyed that bruise, then brushed her hair aside and peered at her neck. Blue dotted her there, too, speckling from her throat down to the base of her breasts, and it was like an inferno blazed in his ears, drowning out all other sound. He could _still_ see the lavender shadows, too, and his eye twitched.

“El,” he whispered, and she must have heard something in his voice because she turned to him with her brows knitted with concern. “Y-you have me, now.”

She took a moment to answer. “Yes,” she said, quiet, dark. “I do.”

“So you don’t need,” he paused, then reconsidered. She was frowning at him, her gaze flickering between his eye and his mouth. At long last, he said, “Would you go out with me? On a date.”

She blinked. Then she relaxed into his arms. “Of course,” she said, and smiled.

The mark he left was not as dark, and it would not last as long. He would have to find a way to change that. But he did know one thing, his sole source of comfort as Edelgard cuddled closer, blearily contemplating aloud what they should have for dinner.

Edelgard had always loved heat.

* * *

The surgical compress was removed a week later. After a cursory probe into his socket - an undoubtedly _bizarre_ experience - his surgeon placed a clear spacer inside to protect the integrity of the socket and offered him a new eyepatch before sitting him down with Patricia.

“Your insurance has agreed to cover the cost of an acrylic prosthetic,” the surgeon said, her eyes trained to the computer screen where his information was kept. “We can collect references today and it’ll be ready in a couple months. I’ll book an appointment to have it inserted and give you instructions on keeping it clean then - as long as you take care of it, it should last you about five years. Questions?"

Dimitri nodded along with the rush of information, a little overwhelmed at all of it. Thank goodness Patricia was there with him; she covered his hand with her own and squeezed, then asked, “Will it be… You know, obvious? That it’s fake?”

“Not too much, no. The pupil won’t dilate the way his real one does, but we have the resources at our disposal to craft a realistic replica of his existing eye; it’ll move just the same way this one does.”

Patricia gave him a reassuring smile at the news, and Dimitri began to wonder.

A few clicks later, and the surgeon straightened, gesturing to Dimitri as she crossed to the chair. “Alright, come on over and I’ll get a few reference photos. We can discharge you after that.”

Dimitri paused, opened his mouth, and glanced to a curious-looking Patricia. Her eyes were wide, calling to mind just how much they resembled Edelgard’s. He took a deep breath.

“Could you replicate someone else’s eye?” he asked.

* * *

Summer passed too quickly. Dimitri spent as much of his time with Edelgard as he possibly could, offering her his bed at night and his company during the day. His friends came over and she laughed merrily with them; as he’d predicted, she got along quite well, cleverly dodging Sylvain’s various flirtations and actually developing a bit of a competitive streak to counter Ingrid and Felix. Whatever perceived slight had passed between herself and them all those years ago, it was quickly forgotten; Edelgard had, at long last, caught back up.

He grew to tolerate her friends, as well. As he’d already been aware, they were more… raunchy than he was used to on a general level, but he even grew to like a few. Caspar and the do-nothing, whose name turned out to be Linhardt, were tolerable for the fact that he quickly grew to understand that they were more interested in each other than in Edelgard, and Bernadetta likewise seemed to be disinterested in sharing her bed. Ferdinand was as irritating as ever, and Dorothea… Well, she confused him more than anything else, especially when she coyly suggested a threesome and he was left to parse whether or not she spoke in jest.

But he found, even then, that he could hardly so much as stand to be in the same room as Hubert. He never went far, no, but he could only listen, pursued by that ghostly shadow as he strained to hear their flirtations from the hall.

Edelgard did pout once, said that she wished her brothers would get along, but it only took one cracked controller decimated by Dimitri’s jealous strength to establish that this was just a pipe dream.

School started, and she moved back to her father’s home. Dimitri missed her in his bed - he found that sleeping without her there was no longer merely difficult, but very nearly impossible. Lambert and Patricia inevitably began to fret that the anxiety he’d endured during the summer had poisoned his ability to self-regulate even during the school year, but his worries lingered on other subjects.

The barest condolence came in that Hubert no longer lived at home and the assumption that he was busy enough with university not to visit her all that often. But still, he had no way to know what happened in that house when he wasn’t present, and it drove him mad.

He took comfort in knowing that Edelgard would understand just how deeply she’d affected him when his prosthetic came in.

It took until October of that year, but it came. Dimitri fidgeted all through his appointment, his heart pounding into his throat, and when he saw himself in the mirror, he very nearly cried. He had told Patricia that he wanted this because he wanted to be reminded of her and Edelgard when he looked in the mirror, not just his father, and she had been touched. And to his credit, it wasn’t entirely a lie.

Double-takes followed him around school the following day. Felix had informed him once that he had developed a fearsome reputation, between the longer hair and the eyepatch. Dimitri didn’t quite understand it, but perhaps that was because his closer friends spent so much time daring each other to lift up his eyepatch and look into his empty eye socket over that summer. He hadn’t minded - it had been a way to demystify the situation, to feel a little less repulsion when _he_ saw what he looked like with the patch off. (That, and Edelgard’s playfully telling him that she liked his roguish new look.)

He wondered as he wandered the halls at recess whether that reputation would dissipate now. It was a good thing if it did, wasn’t it? He looked almost back to normal now, if not taller, if not older. 

No, he figured, pausing to adjust his half-ponytail, he supposed there was no returning to the way things had been. What had taken place that summer was a scar more than a bruise.

At long last, he spotted her. She was sitting outside with Petra, enjoying the final, unseasonal traces of warmth before the cold snap expected for later that week. He donned his best smile and approached over the grass, and she turned her head as he approached.

“Oh, you got it! Let me see,” she called, stumbling to her feet and running to him. Petra followed slower, but Dimitri hardly paid her any mind; he felt his heart pounding with every step Edelgard took, all but unable to breathe by the time she reached him. He saw her brow knitting with confusion for a moment as she glanced between each of his eyes. Her mouth fell open, and Dimitri watched with tense satisfaction as her eyes grew dewy.

“You look,” she said, soft and choked, and she covered her mouth. Petra arrived at her side, and Dimitri very nearly wished she hadn’t; he watched how Edelgard’s shoulders swayed forward, like she wanted to hold him, but she didn’t. He met her eyes, feeling warm at the thought that he would be seeing that same color peering back at him out of the mirror later that night.

He reached forward and squeezed her arm, a promise for later.

“This is the mark you’ve left on me,” he whispered.

**Author's Note:**

> [My Twitter](https://twitter.com/glittergluwu)
> 
> Comments are always welcome, and so is critique!!!


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